应该refinance吗?

帮朋友问问.

她现有5/1 ARM 4.5% 72万贷款,还有一年半到期,可是担心那时的贷款利息上升,所以想现在refinance.

现在有super conforming loan 5/1 ARM 5.25%,她应该refinance吗?

我帮她算了一下:如果现在refinance到5.25%,17个月她要损失约$9000,如果一年半后利息涨到6%,再过1年半后她才可以打平(共3年),那么后面2年她可以少付利息.可是如果贷款利息仍是在6%以下,她基本上不省钱,还有可能多付利息.

她现在refinance的理由是可以protect her from worst senarios (interest rate goes higher than 7%),也就是吃点眼前吃亏,保得晚上睡安稳觉(也只有3年半的安稳觉哈).

我认为她现在不必refinance.我的理由是现在联邦利息只有2%,银行要5%,利润很高.因为银行以前screwed up, now they are making up the money by charging high mortgage interest rates.在弯曲,房价如此高,如果interest rate goes to 7%,没有几个人买得起房子,那弯曲的房地产市场就会崩溃.政府不会允许银行如此人为的贪婪行为.

So this is basically a risk management question. I know nobody has a crystal ball for the future, but some meaningful analyze can help to make wise decisions.

请大家踊跃发言.

One from someone works in mortgage backed security:

bank charging 5% is not they want to make money, it is because they are short cash in their balance sheet and unwilling to lend. So if the liquidity stress is eased in one year time and the  fed fund rate stay low, bank will lower the lending rate. But the problem is when liquidity stress is over, fed will consider inflation and may raise rates again. The net effect may cancel each other and make lending rate stay high/unchanged.

This is why I am not clear about the direction of lending rate. California housing market was the worst hit in this crisis and housing price in average is going down 14% per year. House value in your area remained high is an exception to the over all market.

In terms of ARM, i think the lending rate will be more or less stable or even lower in the next 18 month, so I am more agree with you not to refinance now. But again, this one I can't predict as market is so uncertain...